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The campaign to keep Britain in Europe is being part-funded with hundreds of thousands of pounds foreign companies and some of America’s biggest banks, it has emerged.

Figures from the Electoral Commission show that Citigroup and Morgan Stanley donated £250,000 each to the official Britain Stronger in Europe group ahead of the June 23 referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union.

Two other US banks – Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan – donated £500,000 each to the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign before February when donations had to be declared.

Other donations came from France’s Airbus and Eurostar, which gave £7,500 each.

Lord OwenCredit:
Jeff Gilbert/ Jeff Gilbert

The official figures also disclosed that Lloyds, the part-Government owned high street bank, lent the Remain campaign £20,000 at an interest rate of just one per cent.

Vote Leave, the anti-European Union campaign, pointed out that the US banks were played key roles in the global financial crisis.

Lord Owen, the Eurosceptic former Labour foreign secretary, said the fact that such large multi-nationals had donated to the In campaign showed the Vote Leave group was engaged in a “David and Goliath fight”.

These figures show again that we are in a David vs Goliath fight, but it is one we are determined to winLord Owen

He said: “The EU works in the interests of the elite - the one per cent - so it is entirely unsurprising to find that the campaign to keep us in the Union is financed by big banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

“These figures show again that we are in a David vs Goliath fight, but it is one we are determined to win - for the good of the British people.

“They are the ones who pay the costs of uncontrolled migration - through lower wages, and unsustainable pressure on public services such as schools and hospitals.

“Now is the opportunity for them to strike back - and reclaim control of the £350 million we send to the EU every week, to spend it on their priorities instead.”

But figures showed that overall the Leave camp is winning the financial battle for donations against the Remain side in the EU referendum war.

Overall, anti-EU campaign groups raked in £8,180,425 in reportable donations, and £6 million in loans, between February 1 and April 21, giving a total of £14,180,425.

This was approaching double the £7,458,712 donated to the groups seeking to stay in the union during the same period, which, when coupled with loans, grew to £7,542,652.

The In Campaign, also known as Britain Stronger In Europe, took the biggest single chunk of money in donations with £6,883,684.

More than half of this sum came from Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the Labour peer, who donated more than £3.7million.